Short Summary

Four Palestinians pleaded guilty on Saturday to the murder of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tell, who was assassinated in Cairo in November.

Description

Four Palestinians pleaded guilty on Saturday to the murder of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tell, who was assassinated in Cairo in November. The four men are being tried before the State Security Court in Cairo.

The accused men are Ziad Mohamed Helew, Mohamed Khairy Khasan, Gawad Ahmad Abou Aziza and Mohamed Nabil Hassan. They told the court they were not killers, but executioners. They said they murdered Mr. Tell to avenge the killing of "some 20,000 Palestinians" during the disturbances in Jordan last year.

A leading defence lawyer, Mohamed Jostafa Sarady, chairman of the Egyptian Bar Association, claimed that a fifth person not before the court actually killed Mr. Tell. He said a medical report would show the Premier died from two bullets from a gun which was not found among the weapons carried by the accused. He said they had pleaded guilty "because they wished they had killed Mr. Tell."